Clinton Proposes Hike For Embattled Tech Program

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Clinton Proposes Hike For Embattled Tech Program

President Clinton's 1998 budget request proposed 22.5 percent more for a federal technology program that has come under fire from deficit hawks as a blatant example of corporate welfare.

The Advanced Technology Program, a key plank in Clinton's technology initiative, is designed to provide seed money to jump-start fledgling technologies in companies and universities. Clinton is requesting US$276 million for the program this fiscal year, a $51 million jump from last year.

Proponents defend the program as a sound economic investment. "The ATP exists for the public good by funding only those high-risk technologies that promise to produce novel technical capabilities that will be useful throughout the economy," said Robert Hebner, acting director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Others say the program is a waste given the eagerness of venture capitalists to finance promising technologies. "A federal contribution is not only unnecessary, it's unwise because it allows bureaucrats with no free-market interest or experience to pick economic winners and losers," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union. "If there's a great profit potential there, someone else is going to fund it privately. If there isn't, why are we risking taxpayer money on it in the first place?"

Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy for the libertarian Cato Institute, called ATP a poster child of corporate welfare. "It's exactly the loathsome partnership between government and industry that both the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress have said they wanted to exterminate," he said.

Clinton's increase to the program's budget sets up a battle with a Congress dominated by Republicans, longtime critics of the program. In 1995, House Republicans tried to kill the program as part of the a broader effort to dismantle its parent, the Commerce Department. Last year, Congress gave the program $120 million less than the $345 million the president requested.

The rise Clinton has requested for the coming year may reignite that old battle.

"We think we'll be in the position to defend this program on its merits," said Mary Good, Commerce under-secretary for technology. "We think we have a good chance of holding on."